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Liberal leadership debate in Vancouver will give candidate Joyce Murray time to shine

Liberal MP Joyce Murray should feel at home in the first leadership debate, which will take place on home turf and discuss issues at the heart of her platform.

Joyce Murray, Liberal MP for Vancouver Quadra,believes voters want more than a system of politics that doles out “little carrots to specific groups to satisfy their individual interests.” (FRED CHARTRAND / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

By Susan DelacourtOttawa Bureau

Thu., Jan. 17, 2013

OTTAWA—Liberal leadership contender Joyce Murray enters the first debate this weekend with two advantages on her side.

First, the event is being held on the home turf of the Vancouver MP, the only candidate who makes her home west of Ontario.

As well, the nine candidates are due to discuss electoral cooperation with other parties — an issue on which Murray has already staked out some clear ground in favour of strategic, progressive alliances.

In a field crowded with candidates making appeals to the centre-right of the political spectrum, Murray is one of the rare few contenders saying that the Liberals’ future lies in the progressive left.

This week, she earned the endorsement of Matthew Kalkman, author of a much-praised 2012 guidebook to rebuilding the progressive, Liberal vision, called New Liberalism.

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Murray and Kalkman have co-authored an article, due to be published on Friday, in which they lay out a Liberal agenda focused on long-term planning — everything from sustainable economic and environment policies to investments in education and training.

“We are programmed to think about the next quarter and the next election and not about the next generation,” they write. “Across the board, we have been ignoring our long-term challenges even as they worsen, whether we are talking about the economy, the environment, our social system, or our democracy.”

In an interview this week, Murray said she believes voters want more than a system of politics that doles out “little carrots to specific groups to satisfy their individual interests.” This approach, treating citizens like consumers of political sales campaigns, keeps politics from tackling long-term challenges, Murray said.

“I do see myself as a progressive leader,” she said. Her entire campaign is being organized around an outreach to the roughly 60 per cent of people who didn’t vote Conservative in the last election — not just Liberals, but New Democrats and non-partisan, floating voters as well.

“My job is to help people who have not normally been interested in a particular political party, who are non-partisan, but who are concerned about Canada’s future, to take notice,” said Murray.

When Murray launched her campaign in November, she said she was in favour of run-off nominations in tight ridings, so that Liberals, New Democrats and Greens could choose one candidate to defeat the Conservatives. Not many of her fellow candidates have endorsed that idea, though former justice minister Martin Cauchon, the newest contender in the race, has indicated openness to it.

Electoral cooperation is one of the big themes due to be discussed on Sunday afternoon when the Liberal leadership contenders hold the first in the series of five debates before voting starts in April. Vancouver is the site of the first debate, to be followed in the coming weeks with debates in Winnipeg, Mississauga, Halifax and Montreal by the end of March.

Voting begins in early April, open to all members and supporters of the Liberals who register to vote before March 3. A company named Dominion Voting has been enlisted to handle the mass balloting, which will take place online and by phone over one week leading up to the April 14 announcement of the results.

At a media briefing this week in Ottawa, Liberal party officials said they were confident that they would have more success with this mass-voting exercise than the New Democrats did a year ago, when a hacker attack snarled multiple ballots in that leadership race. Liberals believe that by stretching the vote out over a whole week, they leave themselves less vulnerable to mischief.

About 100,000 people are eligible to vote in the Liberal leadership race — about 55,000 full party members and another 45,000 who have signed up to be “supporters,” but not card-carrying members. Hundreds of other names are also being amassed by the various leadership campaigns, but the grand total of voters won’t be known until after people have formally registered to cast a ballot.

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